The weather and thinking back

We should have left the TV off this morning, but we didn't. It's a habit. Get that first cup of coffee and with the other hand pick up the remote control and turn on the local news and weather. It was the weather forecast I could have done without...the prediction of rain and thunderstorms, today through next Monday. That's right, through next Monday. The weatherman had that little smirk on his face too when he told us, like he enjoyed ruining our days.

One last Iris has opened and it can be our sunshine today! Try taking the shine out of this beauty Mr. Weatherman!

As a child, I remember loving the rain. That was back when folks kept their windows open in the summertime. I loved sitting near an open window watching the rain come down, making pools of water in the yard. Wading in puddles of water in a grassy yard feels different than wading in mud in the ditches. We begged mama to let us play in the rain and occasionally she did. We waded barefoot in mud puddles and I can remember mama yelling to us in that pleading sort of voice to "get out of those mud puddles, you're going to get worms!"

and here are the three of us along about the time we played in the rain and walked in the mud...

Shelby was the oldest and the ring leader! Mama had rolled Shelby's hair on pieces of paper sack the night before this picture was taken. That's why she looks so pretty.

then that's me on my tricycle. That's the very tricycle that I was on one sunny day, riding across the front yard as fast as my bare feet could pedal when the front wheel came off and I fell, hard. Crying I was, all the way to mama.

Mama made our dresses back then. I used to love standing behind the sewing machine watching mama sew, and probably asking her questions. If there was enough fabric left over, mama made my doll a dress too.

and then here's Jackie the youngest of us three.

It was several years then before our youngest brother Randall was born. Jackie was eleven when Randall came along.

While I'm at it, here's an old picture of mama and daddy back when they were young.

Talking about windows being open in the summer, back before everybody had air conditioners...I remember too, mama and us kids being in town or somewhere and it coming a big rain...I can just see us scrambling to get home and mama saying, "Lord, every window in the house is open and I bet it's raining in!" 

Guess I had better get up from here and get busy. Poppy will be home in about thirty minutes.

Love,
Henny

Children playing!

Reading a post  this morning on hiawathahouse.blogspot got me to thinking about some of the dangerous things my sister, brother, and I got into growing up.  Back then children played outside more, with whatever was available. The crazy ideas we came up with!

    Jackie, Shelby, Melba

Once upon a time I almost chopped off my brother's big toe with the ax.  Seriously!  We were very young.  I'm thinking maybe four and five years old.  Had I been older and stronger, his toe may have been chopped off. Only bits and pieces of this story do I remember...like a wood pile, the ax, the back yard...and telling Jackie to put his foot on the block, that it felt good.  I struggled to pick up the heavy ax, but somehow lifted it and let it drop, on his toe!  I remember the screaming, and crying and excitement of mama or daddy, or both, running out.  This story was told many many times through the years!  His toe healed, by the way!

                     

Shelby, the oldest and the ring leader was full of ideas.  Once she tied a wire from tree to tree in that same back yard where the toe chopping took place.  I suppose she was dividing off the back yard for playing, you know,  my space, your space!  After putting up the wire she went running to the house, ran into the wire, fell, and broke her arm.  I do remember her blaming me, telling Daddy that I was the one who put up the wire, causing her to fall.  The story didn't stick though! :)

                      
Then there was Jackie, again!  He and two other boys tied a rope on a tree limb.  All three climbed the rope and were hanging on...Jackie being the last to climb and was hanging on the bottom.  The rope broke!  All three fell, Jackie hitting the ground first and the other two boys landing on top of him. Jackie's arm was broken in two places.  This required surgery and a pin placed in his elbow.  Jackie's arm was never normal again. He could never completely straighten his arm.

With a little thought I could write more of these stories.  These were probably the most talked about.

Thank you for stopping by!

Love,
Henny Penny

Playing in the snow, 1940's

Busy wiping the dust off a few things on the table in the hall this morning, I noticed how cold Shelby, Jackie, and I looked out playing in the snow.

Shelby, sitting on the sled, seemed to be the only one having fun!  I remember how bundled up mama had me.  I don't think my arms would bend.  Believe me, I was never the fat child that I appear to be in this picture!  I also remember that green knit hat with the ball on top.  The ties were shaped like a beaver's tail.

Our house, in the background, is where we lived first in Robbins.  That would have been in the mid or late 1940's.  We moved from this house to Summerville, South Carolina.   

This is the house where Jackie's little friend Diane lived next door...

Jackie was such a sweet looking boy...with that worried look of his.  He looks like a little Dutch boy here...

We were living here when Shelby and I each got a Betsy Wetsy doll and a wooden doll cradle for Christmas.

 

Then we moved and I started school, first grade, in Summerville...

We moved back to Robbins as I was going into third grade...

I hung around the sewing machine watching mama make this dress.  The fabric was a combination of brown, with brown and white checks, trimmed in white eyelet lace.  I remember mama taking the leftover scraps of cloth and making my doll a matching dress.

Mama had the patience of Job!  She never tired of cleaning, cooking and taking care of us.  If she did, It never showed.  She worried over our hands getting wet and cold when we played in the snow.   She was continuously calling us in to warm our hands and feet...putting our gloves, socks and shoes on the heater to dry.  With every snow, mama made snow cream for us to enjoy.  It was soooo delicious!!!  With sugar, cream, and vanilla flavoring!  

It was when we were living in this first house in Robbins that daddy came home one night with a fishing plug hooked through his chin.  Daddy used to fish a lot.  The plug had gotten hung on something.  Daddy was pulling and jerking on the rod when the plug came loose, flew back and hooked him in the chin.  It was a big plug too!  One of those with three hooks on front and three hooks on the back!  I can still see that plug dangling from daddy's chin and the blood!  I remember the fear and excitement in the house, and daddy going to see the doctor that night.

Okay, enough of this.  I am sure this is interesting only to me...so thank you for sticking around.

Love,
Henny Penny

A note about my third grade picture...what a horrible looking ear I have showing in the picture.  Actually my ear was fine and normal. :) All of my school pictures were accidentally ripped into shreds many years ago and to make matters worse, I had scotch taped them back together.  I carried a couple of the pictures to have them restored and this was the best they could do. 

Thinking of Christmas

I drove past the most beautifully decorated house on Saturday.  I actually drove around the block a second time so I could get a picture....

Nothing stresses me as much as buying Christmas gifts for people, and it is not the money!  I love giving gifts!  I am simply not a shopper.  I cannot pick out gifts to give. 

Back when I worked in Raleigh I would tell Poppy to expect me home late...that I was going to do some Christmas shopping after work.  Well I would walk and look and look and walk, and finally after wasting three hours of precious time, would go home, mad at myself and depressed.

Somehow every year though, I manage to get the gifts, as mama would say..."such as they are," get them wrapped and under the tree.  From a couple years back...

Christmas shopping used to be simple, and fun!  of course, I was a child then!  Daddy used to give each of us children a little shopping money before Christmas to buy each other presents.  There were no malls around then.  Our shopping was done simply by walking to town...the town of Robbins, in the early 1950's. 

Gift buying was exciting!  For daddy, it was a box of chocolate covered cherries, Old Spice after shave, or a pack of handkerchiefs.  And every year daddy was totally surprised, and as pleased as could be with what we had picked out for him. 

Lee's dime store was where we shopped!!!  For mama, there was so much to choose from...fingernail polish, lipstick in the little metal tubes, Jergins lotion, Pond's cream, ladies handkerchiefs, Evening in Paris perfume.  Lee's sold all sorts of lovely things!  Mama was always surprised  too, and happy with what each of us had picked out for her!  How proud we were to watch them open their presents on Christmas morning!

What Shelby, Jackie, and I got for Christmas didn't come from Lee's dime store.  Everything we wanted could be bought at Sears Roebuck.  From the time the Sears Roebuck Christmas catalog arrived until Christmas eve, one of us had a pencil and sheet of notebook paper making lists.  Everything we wanted was in that catalog and Santa Claus somehow knew that. 

There was no doubt in my mind about there being a Santa Claus either!   There was a Santa Claus!  Why would anyone even question such a thing.  Then one day Shelby was snooping around while mama and daddy were away from the house.  She found everything!  Under a bed!  Did she keep it to herself?  No!  She broke the terrible news to Jackie and me.   DRAT!

Image from Wikipedia

This is not a picture of our tree nor of our house.  Sure wish I had more old family pictures to share with you.  There used to be a box full of pictures at home, like there is in every household.  Somehow I got the short end of the stick when the family pictures were doled out.   Anyway, the old picture above reminds me a bit of how things looked when I was growing up.

One Christmas Santa Claus brought me the most beautiful baby doll.  She was dressed in pink and lace and she wore a pink bonnet over her blond hair.  She was a large doll, in a pink box.  I first saw this doll displayed in Williamson's grocery store sitting high up on a shelf.  I knew she had to be mine...I just knew it!  I remember right then telling mama and daddy, that is the doll I want for Christmas!  Mama and daddy were friends with the Williamson's and I had gone with them to the store.  Occasionally, the four of them would get together and play cards.  Their names were Dawsey and Pearl. Their small grocery store was on a street behind the grammar school in Robbins.  Dawsey and Pearl lived in a small house that was connected to the back of the store.  Friends, on Christmas morning, that very doll was under the tree with my name on it!

Thank you for visiting!

Love,
Henny Penny